Teaching rhythm

I love this game (if I do say so myself) because it reviews so many different level 1 music theory concepts. There are 4 sets of cards in Bananas and Ladders covering note names, intervals, terms and note values. It’s up to the teacher what types of explanations or definitions they want for each term….

Here, my student Georgia is working on Dragon Dance from Pattern Pieces 2. She was having a little trouble bringing in the right hand on time in one section. Rather than tell her where the glitch was or having her count it out, I decided in this case to give her an opportunity to listen…

My student Amelia was having a little trouble following the rhythm in this piece which is at the beginning of the Piano Safari book. She was doing something many students have a tendency to in the beginning: playing repeated notes more quickly than other notes. I believe they do this because these parts are “easy”,…

This is a game I created as a Christmas bonus for my Vibrant Music Teaching members and played at several of the final lessons before our break. This is not just any matching game. There are 5 different options that match for each sign or symbol. For example: Quarter note Crotchet Ta 1 beat Teachers…

No matter whether you call them quavers, eighth notes, titis, or something else again – students can struggle to fit these subdivisions in evenly. Experiencing how crotchets against quavers feels in the body is an important step towards real understanding of what those funny beamed notes are. In this video, you’ll see us working on stamping…

Technique and sight reading are two of the most essential skills that we need to pass on to our piano students. I’m constantly in search of new methods, resources and ideas to teach these key concepts. In this post, I’m sharing my favourite technique and sight reading resources for piano teachers. From all the things I’ve tried…

This video is the second in the new series, Colourful Keys Quick Clips. You can catch all the quick clips published so far by clicking here. As many of you know, I’m big on games, and today I want to give you a taste of what it’s like to teach music theory through games. This…

Teaching rests is easy. Sure, students might confuse minim and semibreve (half and whole) rests, but that’s not difficult to fix. What can be difficult is to actually get them to follow through on the rests. When teaching rests, we often need an extra step so they’re not completely ignored by beginning pianists. That’s where…

If you haven’t noticed already, I like to use A LOT of games in my piano lessons. Especially when it comes to teaching young beginners. I have one game for beginner note values that I really love: Musical Meander. But I thought it was time to add another. After all, variety is the spice. (Don’t…

Getting over the pond to go to NCKP is something that has been on my list for a while now – and it didn’t disappoint. In case you weren’t lucky enough to make it yourself, I want to share some of my inspiration with you. This is the first in a series of five posts where…

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About Nicola

Nicola has been teaching piano since 2005 and runs a creative piano teaching studio in Dublin, Ireland. Nicola believes in music lessons that motivate and inspire, and shares some of her ideas for vibrant piano lessons on the Colourful Keys blog.

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